Your Right to Know

WASHINGTON — House Speaker John Boehner has invited Pope Francis to address a joint session of
Congress — an unprecedented event — during an expected visit to the United States next year.

Francis, who yesterday marked the first anniversary of his election as the leader of the world’s
1.2 billion Catholics, is widely expected to travel to Philadelphia in September 2015 to attend the
World Meeting of Families.

Mayors of several other U.S. cities have invited him to visit and Boehner moved to secure a spot
on the pope’s itinerary in a letter to sent to the pontiff yesterday.

While Pope John Paul II visited Washington in 1979 and Pope Benedict XVI visited the capital in
2008, the Senate Historian’s office said it has no record of a pontiff ever addressing
Congress.

“Pope Francis has inspired millions of Americans with his pastoral manner and servant
leadership, challenging all people to lead lives of mercy, forgiveness, solidarity and humble
service,” added Boehner, the highest-ranking U.S. elected official who is Catholic.

But the West Chester Republican also used the occasion to reiterate Republicans’ views that
increased government spending and welfare programs are not the way to meet Americans’
responsibility to care for the poor and the most vulnerable.

He said Americans “have embraced Pope Francis’ reminder that we cannot meet our responsibility
to the poor with a welfare mentality based on business calculations. We can meet it only with
personal charity on the one hand and sound, inclusive policies on the other.”

Francis, a Jesuit who has taken a vow of poverty, last November called unfettered capitalism a “
new tyranny,” and criticized “trickle-down” economic theory, which is favored by many U.S.
Republicans.